Working Holiday visa ending: how to stay in Australia

MARN 1576536

The dates

• Your visa end date. Any onshore application must be lodged before it; a lodged application carries a bridging visa, an intention does not.
• Your age. A second or third Working Holiday visa must be applied for before you turn 36 (UK, Irish, Canadian and several other passports) or 31 (the rest). The skilled permanent visas close at 45.
• Six months with one employer. Condition 8547 limits work for a single employer to six months, with broad exemptions since 2024 and permission available to go longer. It matters when an employer wants to sponsor you and the nomination will take longer than the months you have left with them.

Second and third year

For UK passport holders the free trade agreement removed the specified work requirement for applications lodged on or after 1 July 2024 and set the age limit at 35: a second and a third 417 on the same terms as the first. Irish, Canadian and other age-35 nationals, and every 462 holder, still need the specified work: 88 days for the second visa and six months for the third, in the regional industries and postcodes the Department lists. The 17 September 2026 package announced a ballot for second and third visas, reported at 45,000 and 5,000 places, with the UK reported to sit outside it; nothing has commenced and the current rules apply until it does. The detail, including what counts as specified work, is on the second and third visa page. A further year is time to run the routes below; on its own it is not a plan.

Employer sponsorship

The route most Working Holiday makers stay on. If your occupation is on the Core Skills Occupation List, the employer pays at least A$79,423 or the market rate, and you have a year of relevant experience in the last five years, which can be from home, the employer can nominate you for a 482 once they are an approved sponsor. Nurses, teachers, electricians, carpenters, chefs, engineers, mechanics, early childhood educators and a long list of health and construction roles qualify; hospitality and retail management sometimes do, bar and farm work do not. The six-month employer limit has exemptions in care, health, agriculture, hospitality and the regions, and permission to stay longer can be sought while the nomination is prepared. The 482 leads to permanent residence through the 186 after two years. The route is set out on from a Working Holiday visa to employer sponsorship; the employer's side is on whether a small business can sponsor.

State nomination on points

The route most Working Holiday makers do not know they have. A tradesperson, nurse, teacher or engineer in their late twenties or early thirties with a few years of experience often reaches 65 points for a 190 or 491 without an employer at all: age points, qualification points, overseas experience, and a Proficient or Superior English test for 10 or 20 more. A UK, Irish, Canadian, New Zealand or US passport meets Competent English without a test, which is why so many native speakers never sit one and never see the 20 points that would have brought the invitation. The skills assessment comes first: TRA for trades, ANMAC for nurses, AITSL for teachers, Engineers Australia, VETASSESS for most others, and it takes months. The state nomination adds 5 or 15 points and most states favour applicants living and working in the state, which a Working Holiday maker often is. Start with the points calculator and the nomination tracker.

Partner

If you are married to, in a registered relationship with, or have lived for 12 months as the de facto partner of an Australian citizen, permanent resident or eligible New Zealand citizen, a partner application lodged in Australia before the visa ends carries a bridging visa with work rights. A relationship that started on the trip is a genuine relationship if it is one; the test is the evidence, which starts being collected the day you move in together, not the month before the visa ends. The 820/801 guide and the evidence checklist set out what that means. Registering the relationship in a state that allows it removes the 12-month requirement.

What closed

Since 2 October 2026, Working Holiday and Work and Holiday visa holders in Australia cannot lodge a Student visa onshore. The course that used to carry a backpacker from a Working Holiday visa into a 485 and a 482 now has to be applied for from outside Australia, with the Genuine Student requirement applied to a history that includes the Working Holiday year. It is still a route; it is no longer an onshore one, and it is no longer a short one. See the student visa changes page.

Buying time: the visitor visa

A Visitor (600) visa applied for in Australia can bridge a short gap, for example while a nomination is lodged. It is a visit, with no work rights, a limit of 12 months in any 18, and condition 8503 imposed at the Department's discretion and, once the announced change commences, on every grant. A 600 with 8503 ends the onshore plan. It is a tool for a specific gap, not a way to wait.

Leaving to come back

Leaving before the visa ends keeps every route open: an employer can nominate for an offshore 482, a state invitation can be accepted from home, and the record stays clean. Overstaying, or lodging something weak to get a bridging visa, costs more than it buys. Where the plan is permanent residence and the points are there, a well-timed departure with the expression of interest already lodged is often the shortest path back.

What we see in consultations

• Permanent residence planning left to the last months of the third year, when the skills assessment alone takes longer than the visa has left.
• Skilled people, nurses and tradespeople especially, who qualify for a 190 or 491 and have been told, by someone at work, that sponsorship is the only way.
• The job taken in month one deciding everything: a nominated occupation with a sponsor-ready employer makes the 482 simple, and a job outside the lists makes it impossible, however good the employer.
• British applicants who assumed the UK exemption from specified work applied to Irish and Canadian friends. It does not.

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